As at that moment Balderston arrived I ordered him to examine the rifles of all in the detachment and see if a shot had been fired from any of them. Then I went to the room from which the cries proceeded. The high-roofed, stone-paved chamber was lighted only by a small lantern that cast weird shadows on the ceiling and showed a group of men standing around a bed at the far end. On it the wounded man was writhing in agony, trying with frenzied strength to hurl himself on to the floor; and it required the united efforts of two men to hold him on the cot. He was a dreadful sight. From a bullet hole in his chest the blood welled out at every motion of the body. His face was wet with sweat, the lips drawn back showing the white teeth clenched in pain. His staring eyes saw nothing; and he was delirious. Again and again his awful shrieks rang out through the lofty room and then subsided into meaningless mutterings. In the group by the bed stood an old native hospital assistant, the very inefficient substitute for our absent doctor. He was weeping copiously and seemed utterly helpless. I questioned him about the wound. "Sir, he has been shot through the body; and the bullet has come out through the chest," he sobbed. "Have you--can you do anything for him?" I said. "Sir, it is hopeless. The man will die," he cried through his tears. I shook him by the shoulders. "Collect yourself, _babu-ji_," I said sternly. "Try to do something. Can you not give him an opiate to relieve the pain?" He wrung his hands in the abandonment of helpless despair. "Sir, the case is hopeless. The man will die," he repeated mechanically. I could scarcely hear him through the heart-rending shrieks of the dying man, whose handsome bearded face was distorted, and his strong frame convulsed in agony. I turned again to the weeping Brahmin hospital assistant, useless, like so many of his race, in an emergency. "Oh, for God's sake, drug him into insensibility and let him die in peace," I cried.